discarded armor, stained with gore, lay in a pile just beyond the panther.
Yarbro stared into the creature's flaring, deep green eyes. They were so much like Kelemvor's. At that moment, the young guard
understood, impossible as it may have seemed, that Kelemvor and the panther were one and the same! Just as the creature sprang
toward Cabal, the closest of the huntsmen, Yarbro leaped over the side of the bridge and plunged into the Ashaba to save himself.
As the panther tore the aging archer apart, the man's screams for mercy echoed around Blackfeather Bridge and over the
Ashaba. The two remaining archers, Bursus and Jorah, raised their bows and moved forward. Mikkel, on the other hand, was frozen
by fear and held his bow limply at his side. The panther looked up sharply from its bloody feast and bounded toward Bursus and
Jorah, as if it sensed their deadly intent.
Hands shaking, Jorah aimed and loosed his shaft. It flew high and scraped along the floor of the bridge until it came to a stop a
hundred feet away. The slender, auburn-haired archer grabbed another arrow, but he never had a chance to fire it.
Standing next to Jorah, Bursus steadied himself on his wounded leg and tried to remain calm as the sleek, powerful cat raced
toward him. The black-eyed archer got the creature in his sights, aimed between its eyes, and released his shaft. The panther dodged
to the right at the last possible instant, just before it sprang toward Jorah. The sleek beast bowled the archer over with its weight, then
clamped its teeth upon Jorah's throat.
Bursus stared at the creature in horror as he backed away, reaching for another shaft. His hands shaking as if he had been
struck by palsy, the black-eyed dalesman found an arrow just as the panther looked up from the dead man at its feet. The shaft
rattled against its sight as Bursus stopped limping backward and readied himself to fire. Before Bursus could let fly another arrow,
though, the panther roared again, and the dalesman saw blood and bits of flesh in its open maw. The sight paralyzed him with fear,
and the moment of hesitation was all the beast needed as it sprang from Jorah's corpse. The black-eyed archer saw the creature's
one huge claw raised above his eyes, and then his world went black.
Toward the northern end of the bridge, Mikkel stumbled a few steps backward, away from the carnage. He was moving steadily,
if slowly, away from the panther, his bow at his side. Still, he had only managed to travel a half dozen feet toward the end of the
bridge when the panther turned and looked in his direction.
The green-eyed monster shook with anticipation as it slowly padded toward the fisherman. Fear radiated from the dalesman,
and the scent of his panic rankled the beast's senses, filling it with an even greater rage.
Mikkel dropped his bow and moved away from the weapon, toward the edge of the bridge. The panther's gaze followed the redskinned,
bald fisherman as the dalesman's sparkling prism earring caught the attention of the beast. The panther's rage slowly melted
away as it moved toward the shining object, its limited intellect lost in the multicolored display of light.
Noting that the panther had slowed its movement toward him, Mikkel broke into a run and flung himself over the edge of the
bridge. There was a last, sparkling burst of light from the prism earring, and then the man was gone. The panther raced to the edge of
the bridge and put its front paws up on the railing to search for its prey, but the dalesman was gone, lost in the raging flow of the river.
The beast roared and settled back on all fours.
In the trees beyond the south end of the bridge, Midnight and Adon felt a chill as they listened to the panther howling only a few
dozen yards away from them. They sat huddled beneath a tree, scanning the water for signs of Cyric. As they listened, the panther's
cries turned from roars of anger to bellows of pain, and Midnight's concern for their own survival and growing sorrow over Cyric's
apparent death were pushed into the background by her concern for Kelemvor. Waves of guilt rushed through her, filling her soul with
a horrible sickness. The man who rescued me from the Twisted Tower is probably dead, and I'm more concerned about the
lycanthropic mercenary who led the dalesmen's hunt for me! the mage cursed silently.
"Cyric," Midnight whispered softly as she covered her face with her hands. "I let him die!" she said. "I should have saved him! I
should have -"
"Don't punish yourself for being human," Adon murmured quietly. "You did what you could." The cleric put one arm around
Midnight's shoulder. On the bridge, the panther howled once more.
"Kelemvor!" Midnight gasped. She pushed Adon away and struggled to her feet.
The young cleric grabbed the mage's arm and pulled her back to the ground. "Don't go up there!" Adon wheezed. "We can't face
him while he's in this state. There's nothing we can do now but wait."
And so Midnight and Adon waited in the forest, shivering in their damp clothes. Although Midnight was wracked with guilt over
the loss of Cyric and ached to ease Kelemvor's pain, she knew that Adon was right. Sometimes events got out of control and there
was nothing you could do, no way for you to help.
There was nothing to do but wait for things to right themselves.
If only I could make Adon appreciate the wisdom of his own words, Midnight thought as she turned toward the scarred cleric.
Adon sat huddled against a rotting log, his eyes closed as if he were daydreaming. However, Midnight could guess from the pained
expression on his face that, in his mind, he was watching Elminster's death in the temple again. She thought of a dozen ways to start
up a conversation with him, but she rejected them all as contrived or melodramatic.
Finally she put her hand on the cleric's shoulder. When he looked up at her, the mage smiled warmly and said, "Adon, you've
got to stop punishing yourself for what happened in the Temple of Lathander!"
Adon frowned and turned away. The cleric drew his knees up against his chest, then wrapped his arms around his legs. "You
don't know anything about it," Adon mumbled as he rocked back and forth, his gaze fixed on the churning river.
Midnight sighed and slumped down next to Adon. "We don't know that the old sage died in that rift. Elminster might have saved
himself," the mage said as she caressed the cleric's back. "Lhaeo seemed convinced that his master was safe. That fact alone should
give us hope."
When Adon didn't react to Midnight's words, the raven-haired mage put her hand under the cleric's chin and forced him to look
into her eyes. "Hope has to be enough for us, Adon - for both of us." The panther roared again, and a tear welled in the corner of
Midnight's eye. "It's all any of us really has left, isn't it?"
Adon gazed into Midnight's eyes. "But Sune -"
"I know," Midnight said softly. "It's hard to let go. When Mystra died -"
Adon pushed Midnight away and leaped to his feet. "Sune isn't dead!" the cleric snapped as he backed away from the mage.
"I didn't mean to imply that she was," Midnight said with a sigh. The magic-user stood up and took Adon's right hand in her own.
"If anyone is dead, I am - in Sune's eyes, at least," Adon mumbled. He ran his hand over the scar that lined his face and winced.
"I've become as accursed as Kelemvor. I have been forsaken for my deeds, and this horrible scar is my punishment."
"What deeds?" Midnight asked. "You're one of the most faithful clerics I've ever known. What did you do wrong to deserve your
scar?"
Adon sighed and turned away from the mage. "I don't know... but it must have been terrible!" The cleric put his hand over the
scar and bowed his head. "This punishment is the worst thing Sune could visit upon me. I was once attractive, a credit to Sune. Now
people cringe at my approach or ridicule me behind my back."
"I have never turned away from you, Adon," Midnight said softly. "I have never mocked you. The scars on your flesh can be
healed, and if Sune won't have you, then perhaps she isn't worth worshiping. Besides, it's the scars that run beneath the flesh that
concern me."
Above, the panther roared once again.
Adon turned, anger flaring in his eyes. "We should be quiet," the cleric growled. "We can't afford to have Kelemvor hear us."
Midnight nodded. It was obvious that her comment about Sune had upset Adon, and she did not want to force the issue. Not
yet, anyway. So they spent nearly an hour sitting in silence, listening to the sounds of the river and the panther on the bridge. Finally,
when the yowls and roars had stopped and they were certain the creature had changed back into a man, Midnight and Adon broke
from their cover and approached the bridge.
The heroes felt their hearts sink as the scene of bloody carnage on the bridge was revealed to them. Kelemvor was lying on his
stomach at the center of the bridge. He was naked, and his matted hair covered his face. Four badly mangled bodies lay nearby.
Blood and bits of bodies stained long stretches of the bridge, as if several of the dead men had been dragged or tossed about by the
animal Kelemvor had become.
Images of the clerics whom Bane's spies had slaughtered in the Temple of Tymora just before the Battle of Shadowdale
returned to Adon, and he felt himself grow faint. However, the cleric fought back the nausea rising in his stomach and steeled himself
for what he knew had to be done. The cleric wiped a thin film of sweat from his brow and moved to the first corpse. He grabbed the
dead dalesman's arm, dragged the body to the edge of the bridge, and let the corpse drop into the Ashaba.
"To the sea our shattered bodies go, that our souls may take flight," Adon whispered as Bursus's body disappeared down the
river. "May you find the peace you were denied in this world."
As Adon continued his bloody detail, Midnight dragged Kelemvor's heavy armor close to the fighter's side, then crouched down
beside him. After a moment, she ran to the dalesmen's camp and grabbed a blanket to throw over her former lover.
"Don't wake him," Adon said as he dragged the second dalesman to the brink of the bridge. The cleric stopped for a moment
and looked around. "Not until I've finished. It'll be... better that way."
Midnight nodded, then pointed to the daggers that hung from the dalesman's boots. "Take his weapons before you drop him into
the river."
Adon gasped, and a look of extreme shock gripped his features. "I will not steal from the dead," the cleric snapped.
Midnight stood up and moved away from Kelemvor. "Take their weapons, Adon. We will have a greater need for them than the
creatures that reside at the bottom of the river."
The cleric did not move. He just stood over the dalesman's body, his mouth hanging slightly open. Midnight went to the
remaining bodies and gathered their weapons herself. After the mage stripped each man of his weapons, Adon pronounced a final
blessing on them and dropped the corpses into the Ashaba. Although he did not know if his words would hold any true value in the
realm beyond the living, Adon knew that he would regret it if he didn't even attempt a blessing.
As the last of the dalesmen splashed into the river, Kelemvor began to stir.
"Midnight!" Adon called from the end of the bridge, pointing to the fighter. The beautiful, dark-haired magic-user returned to
Kelemvor's side and placed her hand on his sweat-covered face. Instantly the fighter's eyes flew open and he grabbed Midnight's
hand.
Pain shot up the mage's arm. "Kel!" Midnight cried and tried to wrench her arm from the fighter's iron grip.
Kelemvor looked shocked for a moment, then recognition slowly filtered into the fighter's flashing green eyes. He relaxed his
grip slightly, although he did not release his hold on the mage.
"Midnight!" Kelemvor murmured, his lips trembling. "You're alive!" The fighter's grip loosened even more, and Midnight stopped
struggling.
"Yes, Kel," Midnight said softly. The mage looked into the fighter's eyes and saw pain and confusion.
Kelemvor turned away from Midnight, squeezed his eyes shut, and brought her hand to his lips. "I made a terrible mistake. I
almost hurt you."
Adon approached the fighter's side. Midnight smiled and looked up at the cleric but said nothing.
"Are they... dead?" Kelemvor asked, his face still turned away from Midnight, his eyes still closed. "Are they alI dead?"
"There were four bodies," Adon said softly as he pulled the blanket over the fighter's shoulders. "We saw two more men jump
into the river during the battle."
Kelemvor opened his eyes once more and gazed at the cleric. "Adon," the fighter said softly. "You survived, too. And Cyric?"
Midnight shook her head. "He was lost in the river when the skiff capsized."
Raising himself on one arm, Kelemvor ran his hand through Midnight's hair. "I'm... sorry," he said flatly. Midnight turned to look
at the fighter, but he was already standing up, surveying the bridge. Kelemvor saw the splatters of blood, the weapons gathered in a
pile, and his own armor. Nothing else.
"I'll wager Yarbro escaped," Kelemvor growled. "That one'll be the death of us yet."
"He was the first one off the bridge," Adon mumbled as he handed the fighter a shirt Midnight had taken from the dalesmen's
camp. "I saw him leap off just as I got to shore."
Kelemvor swore loudly. "He'll either return to Essembra to gather reinforcements or ride on to Scardale to warn the town of our
approach. Either way, it'll mean trouble for us. The dalesmen wanted you, Cyric, and Adon dead, though Mourngrym ordered them to
bring you back to the dale to receive your 'just' punishment." Kelemvor paused and turned to Midnight. "Anyway, I'm sure that my
